Finding Employment in Eastern Europe

Teaching English is the most widely available form of employment for North Americans living in Eastern Europe.

Private language schools and public schools are the most common sources of jobs in the field of English-language instruction. Private tutoring of both individuals and groups is becoming popular, too. Even larger companies are hopping on the English-language bandwagon by paying native speakers of English to tutor their management teams in the world’s most dominant business tongue.

As a general rule, the larger your employer, the more structured your approach will have to be in the classroom. Most schools will provide you with lesson plans or at least general guidelines to follow. When you tutor privately, you are usually on your own. Even with a good amount of experience, devising your own lesson plans and teaching strategies can be a daunting task.

Students usually range in age from school-age to their late thirties and early forties, though you will also encounter a few older students. Up until the revolution of 1989, Russian was the second language taught (which is why Russian language is now rather despised especially among the older generation of Czechs) in most of the schools in Eastern Europe, and many of those old enough to have lived during the Second World War speak German.